If you don’t already own a Steam Deck, but do want one, I have some bad news for you: Valve just raised the price by hundreds of dollars. While the LCD version of the Deck has been discontinued (but is still great and available second-hand), the OLED 512GB and 1TB versions are now back in stock, but with increased prices that “reflect the current state of component costs and other global logistical challenges across the industry as a whole,” Valve has announced.
The 512GB OLED Deck will now cost $789, up from $549, and the 1TB OLED Deck will now cost $949, up from $649 – that’s a $249 and $300 price jump, respectively. That makes yesterday the best time to buy a Steam Deck because these new prices are in effect immediately. While unfortunate for would-be buyers, this price jump isn’t all that surprising. Valve joins PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo in raising hardware prices in response to current logistics-related computing costs. RAM, in particular, is especially hard to come by these days as AI companies buy it up in bulk to power data centers and more, and it doesn’t help that the U.S. President has enacted tariffs that affect countries worldwide, including America, when it comes to costs.
This does not inspire confidence in Valve’s plans to release the console-like Steam Machine this year, despite launching the Steam Controller earlier this month (which it was able to do because the controller does not use RAM, a high-demand, low-supply component that things like the Steam Deck and Steam Machine need).
While waiting for the world to get better, read Game Informer’s Steam Deck review, and then check out our list of the top 10 Steam Deck games after that.
Do you think prices will ever go down again? Let us know in the comments below!